That Other Place

Population: Unknown

“The most frightening aspect of a nightmare is that one faces it alone.” -Proverb

Some say that civilization is on the rise, while others already seem to see the cracks. The City of Nava is booming economically and militarily, anyone can see that, but what goes on behind the curtains may tell a different story. As far as adventuring goes, though, life couldn’t be better.
Or maybe not. New dungeons and excavations are popping up all over the place, teeming with monsters, but something suggests a pattern in the works, one so subtle only a wizard or scholar could piece it together—and wizards are disappearing from the land. Mercenary and guard work is in high demand wherever one goes, and yet, every job from Protport to Southgates is hiring out to the Rattan Shields, who work for less and guarantee success to a degree that ragtag bands of adventurers often cannot. And rumors circulate about a fabulous treasure guarded by a demon of the elder world, as rumors always do…except that the tales now point to an island that did not exist on sea charts thirty years ago, one from which no ship or spellcaster has returned since its discovery, one whose outline glows a faint ghostly yellow at night.
You may have been traveling to Taynor, or some safe port in Xen’drik. Unfortunately, your ship caught the wrong currents, or followed the wrong stars, and pulled you at thirty-degree angles from whatever path you once followed. Perhaps you went widdershins at the last fork in the road when you should have not. It hardly matters now.
Welcome to that other place.